QSpace Collection:http://hdl.handle.net/1974/808
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 22:01:34 GMT2015-03-31T22:01:34ZFROM REVELATION TO REVOLUTION: MUHAMMAD’S DEPLOYMENT OF STRATEGIC SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION IN TRANSFORMING THE IDEATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE ARABIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM - 570 ADhttp://hdl.handle.net/1974/12751
Title: FROM REVELATION TO REVOLUTION: MUHAMMAD’S DEPLOYMENT OF STRATEGIC SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION IN TRANSFORMING THE IDEATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE ARABIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM - 570 AD
Authors: Oliver, Murray
Abstract: There has been relatively little study of system change among scholars of international relations. Several academics have referred to the subject as the “evaded dimension” of IR. The reasons for the omission are complex but include a normative inclination to model stability during the dangerous years of the Cold War and the related preeminence of political realism as the primary theoretical lens of IR analysis. Much of the research work since the Second World War used a technically suitable but distinctly Westphalian template for examining the international system. This approach was perhaps useful for understanding contemporary western IR but may have provided a skewed data set from which scholars could investigate the dynamics of system change.
With the Cold War over and the field in the midst of an intellectual expansion, and in the spirit of those scholars who recently called for an IR approach that isn’t “owned and operated by Europe” (referring specifically to Security Communities), this study seeks to suggest an alternerative historical model of system change - one based less upon the explanatory utility of force or interest, but of ideas. Using the “constructivist” lens of analysis, this paper seeks to show how the founder of the Islamic faith, the Prophet Muhammad, used what we recognize today as “strategic social construction” to subvert key social institutions of the tribal-state system of Arabia in 570 AD. His phased efforts at deploying new normative arrangements steadily eroded the structure of ideas on which the system depended. As the “mutual constitution” of personal and system identification began to collapse, a new structure arose based upon reconfigured identities among a new super-tribe of Muslims, the Umma.
This case study provides an insight into a period of history many in the west conventionally view as a violent conquest. This alternative ideational explanation is possibly a useful counterpoint, as well as a supplement to existing historical data on system change. Finally, there are modern, real-world applications that are briefly discussed at the conclusion.
Description: Thesis (Master, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2015-02-03 14:57:22.512Tue, 17 Feb 2015 05:00:00 GMThttp://hdl.handle.net/1974/127512015-02-17T05:00:00ZHomohegemony and the Other: Canada and Jamaicahttp://hdl.handle.net/1974/12691
Title: Homohegemony and the Other: Canada and Jamaica
Authors: Jackson, KYLE
Abstract: Existing scholarship on LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer/questioning) rights, regulation, “homonationalism,” and citizenship fails to consider lesbian and gay inclusion as a hegemonic state ideology. This dissertation addresses this lacuna, with particular attention to Canada and Jamaica. It considers the political implications of near legal equality for gays and lesbians in Canada, not merely in terms of the entrenchment of a regime of sexual citizenship rights culminating in same-sex marriage, but, relatedly, in terms of significant popular consent to the notion of gays and lesbians as equal and included citizens. It theorizes and critically demonstrates “homohegemony,” an ideology of relative inclusion of gay and lesbian citizenship in the national imaginary, in which the state extends selective citizenship rights to the gay and lesbian minority in a benevolent liberal fashion. However, these rights are premised on moments of illiberalism both within and outside the Canadian nation-state. Drawing on a neo-Gramscian understanding of hegemony, these illiberal exclusions may also be seen to characterize homohegemony, ideologically and materially. Once homosexual inclusion in the national imaginary becomes hegemonic, symbolized by the granting of near legal equality through same-sex marriage, longstanding and novel “others” are (re)imagined as exterior to the ideal-typical national community. One illiberal “other” is “homophobic Jamaica,” which functions as a significant constructed counterpoint, or foil, to a newly homohegemonic “national self.” A historical preoccupation with the “homosexual other” within Canada has significantly turned to a fixation on homophobic other nation-states. The ideological construction of Jamaica in particular is persuasive, not least because it bases itself in a degree of truth grounded in real heterosexism. The construction is, however, replete with generalizations, distortions, exaggerations, and omissions, and occurs in the context of historic colonial and other stereotypes. This image of Jamaica invisibilizes a much queerer reality. Homohegemony, both in its veritable benevolent liberal inclusions, and its less commonly appreciated significant illiberal exclusions, is thus set out in a broadly understood Canadian context. That such a context includes the imagination of Jamaica and Jamaicans, within a broader neocolonial relationship, represents a queer development in the history of hegemonic Canadian sexual ideology.
Description: Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2015-01-09 13:27:46.434Fri, 09 Jan 2015 05:00:00 GMThttp://hdl.handle.net/1974/126912015-01-09T05:00:00ZEthnic Affinity Voting in Canadahttp://hdl.handle.net/1974/12687
Title: Ethnic Affinity Voting in Canada
Authors: Besco, RANDY
Abstract: As immigration transforms the electorates of contemporary democracies, the political activity of newcomers will have increasingly powerful effects on political life. This thesis examines one important dimension of this process: the role of ethnic affinity in electoral politics. Affinity effects lead to voters being more likely to support members of the same ethnocultural group - which, as well as vote choice effects, might form the basis of support for leadership contests, counterbalance discrimination, and underpin more general issue coalitions. However, data from the United States, and some from Europe, suggests that inter-minority conflict, rather than cooperation, is the norm. This severely limits the breadth - and hence influence - of potential “rainbow coalitions”. To test for the existence and dimensions of ethnic affinity effects in Canada, this dissertation uses data from a web-based survey experiment with a large panel of racialized respondents (~1500). Respondents evaluated candidates in a hypothetical election, with candidate ethnicity experimentally manipulated. The analysis shows that respondents have strong affinity for their own ethnocultural group, some affinity for other minority candidates, and certainly no inter-ethnic discrimination. Ethnic affinity effects not only apply to Canada, broader “rainbow coalitions” seem much more likely than previously suggested. Moreover, a contextual analysis suggests that Canada is not an outlier – these effects should apply to many countries. The second part of the dissertation explores the causes and motivations for affinity effects. Two categories of explanations are explored – interest-based explanations, and identity-based explanations. For this, the dissertation uses a novel application of the Identification with a Psychological Group Scale, drawn from social psychology, a manipulation that primes self-interest, and other measures. In a sharp contrast to previous research, these results show strong evidence for identity effects and a significant amount of evidence against interest-based explanations. Finally, a new data set on the ethnicity of several thousand candidates over four federal elections, combined with riding level census data, demonstrates that the context for ethnic affinity effects is widespread.
Description: Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2015-01-06 19:41:50.222Thu, 08 Jan 2015 05:00:00 GMThttp://hdl.handle.net/1974/126872015-01-08T05:00:00ZSoaring Eagle: Prestige and American Empire, 1998-2003http://hdl.handle.net/1974/12625
Title: Soaring Eagle: Prestige and American Empire, 1998-2003
Authors: ONEA, TUDOR
Abstract: What are the causes of the US foreign policy of imperial expansion between 1998 and 2003?
US foreign policy in this timeframe is distinctive by its unilateralism and use of force compared to previous instances of American expansion as well as to its political line in the early 1990s. Hence, the thesis conducts an inquiry into the reasons for this transformation in American foreign policy. By contrast to the existing literature on American foreign policy, the thesis argues for an alternative hypothesis in terms of prestige-seeking on the part of the US. Despite its advantage in capabilities, the US found itself constantly unable to translate its preferences into successful outcomes in the 1990s. This discrepancy eventually created the conditions for status inconsistency, i.e. the gap between the social ranks an actor occupies in multiple social hierarchies. An actor experiencing status inconsistency will attempt to balance ranks so as to achieve eventual superiority under all hierarchies. In world politics, prestige is a function of social ranking or status, which is itself conferred according to three dimensions: military capabilities, economic capabilities, and political performance—the ability of successfully translating one’s preferences into successful outcomes. It in this latter respect that the US felt it was particularly deficient in the aftermath of the Cold War, hence the need to conserve and enhance American prestige so as to match America’s pretensions of world leadership. Accordingly, the thesis examines in detail how the pursuit of prestige affected American foreign policy in the contexts of rejection of the ABM and the ICC treaties, the use of force without a UN Security Council authorization the bombing of Yugoslavia over Kosovo, and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The thesis concludes that prestige represents a significant and enduring influence over states’ foreign policy conduct due to status inconsistency. Furthermore, the recent American policy of imperial expansion from 1998 to 2003 under the presidencies of Clinton and George W. Bush is likely to be a harbinger of things to follow, because the circumstances favoring status inconsistency and the consequent policy of prestige are still present.
Description: Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2009-10-20 16:05:12.443Thu, 27 Nov 2014 05:00:00 GMThttp://hdl.handle.net/1974/126252014-11-27T05:00:00Z